


[ Scene Not Found ]

by toushindai (WallofIllusion)



Category: Transistor (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Ficlet Collection, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-18
Updated: 2018-06-18
Packaged: 2019-05-24 22:34:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14963468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WallofIllusion/pseuds/toushindai
Summary: A collection of "missing scene" ficlets set during the course of the gameand compiled into one fic so that I don't have to title them all individually.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoy these, you may also enjoy my fic "[Friendly Fire](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13291167)," which is also a missing scene-style fic but a little longer and written/published before I came up with this particular model. (...Arguably "[Reprise](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11810217)" is a missing scene-style fic as well but that one's porn.)

_Location: Goldwalk_

()

Red recognizes the figure sprawled out down the street before Auden does, and her heart sinks. A moment later, he catches on. 

“Oh,” he says quietly. She can’t tell what he’s thinking, but she grips the handle of the weapon tighter in the hope that it will convey comfort to him. He sighs. “Let’s see what we can do for him.”

Red nods, and approaches the partially processed body of his friend. 92% processed, to be exact—the highest they’ve seen yet. There may not be much she can do. Still, the way Auden calls out to Mack Orthon is as sardonic as ever, belying the gravity of their discovery.

“Well, look who it is,” he says. As if in response, Mack’s trace materializes in the air above his body. Red holds the weapon in front of her so that Auden can speak to him. “Stubborn bastard. Mackey, man, you look awful.”

Red can’t understand the reply, but she can still hear Mack’s good-natured waspishness in the garbled sounds. Auden responds with a short laugh.

“True enough,” he says, and there’s a grin in his voice and Red’s heart aches. For a moment, both he and Mack’s trace are silent. Then Auden says, “We’re gonna show ’em, Mack, you’ll see.”

More garbled muttering, and then Red raises the weapon so that his trace can be integrated. She holds her breath in curious anticipation, waiting for the vibe-pulse of a new function—but none comes.

“There’s… not enough of him left,” Auden says numbly by way of explanation, and Red’s heart twists. “I guess that’s it, then.”

She takes the weapon into her arms and embraces it fiercely, angry and aching for his sake. None of this should be happening. The Camerata shouldn’t have come after her in the first place, and they shouldn’t be tearing down everything in their path just to get to her. It’s as incomprehensible as it is cruel. 

After a moment, Auden sighs, and Red takes that to mean that he’s ready to keep moving. She lets the weapon hit the ground and drags it forward through Goldwalk’s familiar streets, refusing to let the surreal silence slow her pace. 

“He said you’ve got this under control,” Auden offers a minute later, his voice fond and pained all at once. “Think we can get in an extra swing for him, if it comes to that?” 

Red looks down at him, her smile sad for a moment in sympathy. Then she turns it grim and nods a firm promise.

She’s not going to let the Camerata get away with this. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> About Mack: he appears in some dummied-out lines in Goldwalk. This is essentially me writing those lines back in, with a few changes--originally he was going to be the source of Ping(), but obviously Ping() comes from Henter Jallaford in the final canon, so I've increased the amount he's been processed from 78% to 92%, thus making him too far gone to derive a function from. The stark difference between how Boxer (I'm only calling him Auden in this ficlet bc there are two "he"s involved, don't get used to it) interacts with him vs. the other partially processed encounters or even with Red is intriguing to me, and makes me want to know more about their friendship.


	2. Chapter 2

_Location: Maintenance_

()

The Transistor knows the battle is over before she does, and it takes the opportunity to repair the damage the Process has wrought. She’s breathing easier in a matter of seconds. But not easy enough. Her heart is still racing, and when she sits against a low Process-block to collect herself, she tastes iron and feels something warm drip onto her chest. She drags her palm across her mouth and isn’t surprised when it comes away bloody. 

The Transistor glows where she’s leaned it against the block. “Red? Are you okay?” he asks, concern coloring his voice.

She waves vaguely in an answer that even she can’t fully define. She’s seen _him_  take worse damage than this, for fun. She’s seen him step out of the ring covered in bruises, lip torn, one eye swollen shut. She watched him break a rib one night, she thinks, although she never got a straight answer out of him on that and by the next day he’d been to a medic and the question was moot. The Transistor is even faster than a medic, so she isn’t going to complain. It’s not the pain that matters to her anyway. It’s the knowledge that she’ll be doing it all again on the next floor up, because that’s the only way forward and because moving forward is her only choice. 

It’s getting old, but it’s better than giving up. With a sigh, she does her best to lick the blood off her lips, the taste sharp and metallic. For what she can’t reach with her tongue, she rips a bit more off her dress and spits on it before dabbing it against her chin, her chest. At least her nose doesn’t seem to be bleeding any longer—probably thanks to the Transistor. The thing has its uses.

She’d still rather have _him_.

She turns towards him for assessment of her cleaning job. “Looking good,” he assures her. “Ready to keep moving?” 

It’s funny how he asks that like it’s optional. But she does nothing to convey that thought to him, only taking up the Transistor once more with a nod.

“Let’s go, then,” he says, and they do. 

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning on this chapter for suicide ideation.

_Location: Goldwalk(?)_

()

Red hates the Spine. She hated it before, when it was pulling him away from her, but at least there had been relief, too: that the Spine was there to be hated, that it was an explanation, that it could be killed. And kill it she had.

Now there’s another one, and she despises it for what it’s doing to him. Uncharacteristic pessimism dribbles out of him with her name at the front of it, but she isn’t sure he really means for her to hear it. Usually he tries to keep that kind of thing hidden—even from her, even in a situation like this. Just an hour ago he was telling her, in his eyes-averted, break-it-to-her-easy voice, that they had to prioritize saving the city over getting him out of that thing. As if she wasn’t aware of that. As if that’s not what she’s been doing. She couldn’t hate him for his selflessness and she had no time to hate herself, either, but it had hurt to wonder if he was willing to give up on the one thing keeping her going.

She doesn’t think he really meant to reveal, just now, that he’s thinking of seeing her again just as desperately as she is. It broke her heart to hear it and even if she wishes he wouldn’t try to hide it in the first place, she hates the Spine, _hates_ it, for reducing him to someone who would confess that by accident. She wants him to be strong. She wants him to be himself.

She’ll be strong _for_ him instead, but she’s so tired.

There’s a terminal around the corner. She blasts the last white wall out of the way and makes for it, trying to think of what she can say to help him hold together. She only realizes her mistake as the message on the screen flashes from _New Offer_ to _Offer Expired_.

They’re right by Junction Jan’s.

She hadn’t even _realized_. But yes, the building—what was once the building—is right over there, and this is their terminal, and the offer declares mournfully that the chain is closing its doors due to circumstances beyond their control. _No kidding_ , Red thinks, but she can’t find the sarcasm to put behind it.

He has better luck with that than he does. “Ahh,” he says vaguely. “Not Junction Jan’s… Where are we going to get our flatbread now?”

There’s nowhere for her to enter text. Instead, the terminal tries to offer her one last complimentary flatbread. She taps SEA MONSTER without much hope and isn’t surprised when it informs her, in return, that her delivery address is invalid. _No kidding_ , again, because she looks towards Highrise and all she sees is white upon white upon white. She used to be able to point to her own kitchen window from here; now she can’t even identify the building.

“This… is a _tragedy_ ,” he says, still leaning on the words like a joke, as the terminal powers down abruptly. He laughs, too, the sound indistinct like it’s coming through his teeth. But the laughter goes on a little too long, and in a moment it doesn’t sound like it’s under his control anymore. And then it stops sounding like laughter at all. Red closes her eyes, every heartbeat painful, as he tries to keep the sound from turning into broken sobbing and fails.

Why can she picture, so clearly, the way he’d be curled away from her, trying desperately to contain his grief? He hates to be seen like this, and the rarity of it leaves her unequipped to face it. She doesn’t know what to do here, doesn’t know what she  _can_ do, except—

She could stop.

Lacking any practical ideas, her mind has defaulted to its favorite old standby. She could just stop fighting so hard and die. That, at least, is entirely within her own power. He can’t make her keep going; he’s barely present enough to react to what she’s doing, let alone craft a decent argument. She’s not even sure he’d realize what she was up to in time. She could sit down, right here, with her arms around him, and she could wait for the next wave of the Process to come finish her off. It’s not quite “hand in hand,” but maybe it’s the best they can hope for. They had Jan’s together the first night she met him; she’d been sitting on a railing over the river without any particularly imminent intention and he’d asked her to dinner in a bid to get her down. So this wouldn’t be a terrible place to greet her end. Ironic, even. He wouldn’t forgive her for it, but only because there would be no one left to forgive. 

Her heart pounding distantly, Red leans back against the wall. Is this it, then? She can’t find the part of her that knows why this is the wrong thing to do. 

But there’s a rumble behind the wall suddenly, and a melting heat, and instinct leaps her out of the way of a Spine attack without conscious decision. His weeping cuts off abruptly. “Red?” he asks, Transistor flashing a sick scarlet, and there’s panic in his voice. “Red, you’re still there, right?”

She shakes the Transistor by the hilt firmly like she’s shaking him awake. She’s here, she’s here, she’s not going to let _this damn Spine_ part them.

“Oh,” he says thickly. “Oh—good. You’re still there. Yeah.”

She looks from him to where the Spine struck from. The wall melts and it lashes out again, not quite reaching her, but he makes a pained, groggy sound anyway. “It’s close,” he mumbles, barely audible. “S’too close… Gotta hold on…”

Red’s mouth sets in a determined line as anger flares back into defiance.

She’s _not_ going to die here.

Her hands tight around the Transistor’s hilt, she strides away from the terminal as it tries fruitlessly to reboot. The bike’s right around the corner. The eerie Process near it, looming with ruthless malice, doesn’t mean a damn to her. She blasts it apart. 

Then she gets on the bike and speeds away.

 

_(“What I said back there, about wanting to see you again,” he says when he comes back to himself. “I want you to know… I meant it.”)_

_(She believes him.)_

_(She’s going to give him that if it’s the last thing she does.)_


End file.
